The illustrations are so beautiful and the artist is absolutely talented, but they have ALWAYS completely TERRIFIED me. Especially the one of the girl, from the story about spiders hatching in her face (can't remember the name of the story) I can't even look at that picture! It creates such a visceral fear response, it really is crazy. I bought one of these books once and got rid of it within a week, because I couldn't deal with having those pictures in my house -.-These stories have always quite genuinely scared me, and they still do!

Oh man, I used to LOVE those books! When I was a kid, all of my neighborhood friends would come over and we'd read these books over and over again in a dark room with a flash light... just like in the movies ;) I'd love to own them again =)